Table Of ContentForschungen zum Alten Testament
Edited by
Konrad Schmid (Zürich) ∙ Mark S. Smith (Princeton)
Hermann Spieckermann (Göttingen) ∙ Andrew Teeter (Harvard)
150
The History of Isaiah
The Formation of the Book
and its Presentation of the Past
Edited by
Jacob Stromberg and J. Todd Hibbard
Mohr Siebeck
Jacob Stromberg, born 1974; D. Phil. Oxford; since 2011 Lecturer in Old Testament at Duke
University.
orcid.org/0000-0002-4002-4918
J. Todd Hibbard, born 1968; PhD University of Notre Dame; since 2011 Associate Professor
of Religious Studies, University of Detroit Mercy.
orcid.org/0000-0003-1010-9184
ISBN 978-3-16-156097-2 / eISBN 978-3-16-160805-6
DOI 10.1628/978-3-16-160805-6
ISSN 0940-4155 / eISSN 2568-8359 (Forschungen zum Alten Testament)
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbiblio-
graphie; detailed bibliographic data are available at http://dnb.dnb.de.
© 2021 Mohr Siebeck Tübingen. www.mohrsiebeck.com
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The book was typeset by epline in Böblingen using Minion typeface, printed on non-aging
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Printed in Germany.
Preface
The book of Isaiah is a product of history. The nature of that history and what it
means that Isaiah is a product of it are hardly matters of consensus in the field.
This should be expected. History is complex. And it probably confounds, more
often than it confirms attempts to understand it completely. Even so, Isaianic
scholarship has put its collective finger on the crux of the methodological prob-
lem. At the heart of an historical understanding of this prophetic book lies a con-
sideration of the word “history” in two distinct but related applications. First,
what historical processes led to the book’s final form? And second, what kind
of historical representation does the book offer to the reader? The former ques-
tion examines how Isaiah became a book. The latter inspects its presentation of
history, a complex presentation involving diverse modes of exposition (prophet-
ic forecasting, poetic reflection on the present, and prose accounts of the past).
This history engages the Biblical traditions and it involves Israel’s dealings with
the great empires of the Ancient Near East, much of which lay in the past from
the point of view of the book’s final form. For most scholars, answering either
question involves asking the other, the diachrony of the book being related to the
presentation of history found therein and vice versa. To understand better the
history of Isaiah, this volume of essays devotes itself to these two lines of inquiry
and their relationship.
To this end, the volume is divided into three parts. The first provides a set
of essays devoted to the methodological issues involved in examining the dia-
chrony of the book of Isaiah and its presentation of history. In this section, the
aim is to enable reflection upon the analytical procedures presupposed in the
diachronic and synchronic studies presented by the second and third parts of
the volume. The second part offers a consideration of the history of Isaiah in the
light of the Biblical traditions. From an historical perspective, these traditions
remain indispensable, even foundational for understanding the history of Isai-
ah. This is true regarding Isaiah’s textual diachrony as well as its historical repre-
sentation. Here this relationship is examined in relation to differing stages in the
textual formation of Isaiah and the Hebrew Bible. The third part of this volume
investigates the history of Isaiah by means of a focus on those empires explicitly
mentioned in the book. The rationale guiding the selection of those foreign em-
pires here investigated (Assyria, Babylon, and Persia) derives from the pivotal
role played by Israel’s interaction with these nations in the formation of the book
in each of its major stages.
VI Preface
In structuring the volume this way, we hope the reader will perceive the whole
and not just the parts. Theory and practice are bound together every bit as much
as are the histories of the Bible and the Ancient Near East. Thus, our aim in
putting this volume together is to provide the reader with a methodologically
informed treatment of this central topic – the history of Isaiah – as it spans the
whole book, relates to the traditions of the Bible, and emerges out of the com-
plexities of life in the Ancient Near East. Moreover, our goal in selecting con-
tributors was to provide a representative handling of this complicated topic, one
reflecting the differing perspectives at play in the field today. In an undertaking
of this scope, it is perhaps inevitable that gaps in coverage will, nonetheless,
r emain.
Durham/Detroit, May 2021 Jacob Stromberg and J. Todd Hibbard
Table of Contents
Preface .............................................................. V
Part 1
Perspectives on Studying the History of Isaiah
Shawn Zelig Aster
The Contribution of Assyriology to the Study of Isaiah ................... 3
Stephen B. Chapman
Delitzsch’s Fourth Edition ............................................ 23
J. Blake Couey
Poetry and Composition in the Book of Isaiah .......................... 47
Christopher B. Hays
Linguistic Dating of Hebrew Prophetic Texts:
A Quantitative Approach with Special Attention to Isaiah 24–27 .......... 69
Noam Mizrahi
Isaiah between Transmission and Reception:
Isaiah 58:13–14 according to 4QIsan (4Q67) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
J. J. M. Roberts
Isaiah 14:24–27: Genuine Isaianic Expectations or Josianic Redaction?
A Critical Evaluation of the Theory of a Major Josianic Edition
of the Isaianic Tradition ............................................... 131
Christopher R. Seitz
The Presentation of History in the Book of Isaiah ........................ 145
Ronald L. Troxel
Textual Criticism and Diachronic Study of the Book of Isaiah ............. 159
Archibald L. H. M. van Wieringen
A Tale of Two Worlds: A Synchronic Reading of Isaiah 7:1–17 and Its
Diachronic Consequences for the Book ................................ 179
VIII Table of Contents
Part 2
The Biblical Traditions and the History of Isaiah
Avigail Aravna
Sending Subtle Threads of Influence into the Past:
A Reexamination of the Relationship between Isaiah 24:6
and Jeremiah 23:10 ................................................... 199
Ulrich Berges
“Sing to the LORD a New Song”:
The Tradents of the Book of Isaiah and the Psalter ....................... 213
Anja Klein
Praying Exodus: Biblical History in the Prayer of the Servants
(Isa 63:7–64:11) ...................................................... 239
Andreas Schüle
Remember Abraham – or not: Ancestral Traditions in the Book of Isaiah .. 255
Ethan Schwartz
Mirrors of Moses in Isaiah 1–12 ....................................... 269
Jacob Stromberg
Hezekiah and the Oracles Against the Nations in Isaiah .................. 297
Philip Yoo
Torah Yet to Come: Divine Activity in Isaiah 56–66 ...................... 341
Part 3
The Ancient Near East and the History of Isaiah
Peter Dubovský
Inverting Assyrian Propaganda in Isaiah’s Historiography:
Writing the Hezekiah-Sennacherib Conflict in the Light
of the Ashurbanipal-Teumman War .................................... 365
Joachim Eck
Metamorphoses of a Tyrant: Isaiah 14:4b–21 Read in Its Wider Context ... 407
Judith Gärtner
The Kabod of YHWH: A Key Isaianic Theme
from the Assyrian Empire to the Eschaton .............................. 431
Table of Contents IX
J. Todd Hibbard
A Fortschreibung from the Assyrian Crisis of 701:
Isaiah 30:18–26 as an Update to Isaiah 30:8–17? ......................... 447
Reinhard Müller
“Ashur Will Be Terror Stricken”:
Isaiah 30:27–33 as Inverted Political Prophecy .......................... 461
Kim Lan Nguyen
Cyrus: A Righteousness ............................................... 475
Konrad Schmid
Theological Interpretation of Assyrian Propaganda in the Book of Isaiah .. 493
Daniel J. D. Stulac
Go-out from Babylon/There!:
A Canonical Approach to Departure in Isaiah 48:20 and 52:11 ............ 503
Marvin A. Sweeney
Reading the Final Form of Isaiah as a Persian Period Text ................ 527
H. G. M. Williamson
Decoding Isaiah 13 ................................................... 539
Contributors ......................................................... 551
Index of Ancient Sources .............................................. 553
Index of Modern Authors ............................................. 583
